Undead and Unappreciated

  “I—I—I—”

  “You are too kind, Jessica.”

  “I—I—I—”

  “It’s all right, Dad,” I said, forcing myself to pat his shoulder. “I won’t let him come if you don’t want him there.”

  “But I adore baby showers!” Sinclair protested, having the gall to sound wounded. “I find them scrumptious.”

  “I just…” My dad took a deep gulp of air and tried to steady himself. I stopped patting. “I just wanted to make sure you got the…the announcement. But I also wanted to remind you…your stepmother is very delicate…very…under a lot of stress, you know…the baby…and the spring carnival…she’s chairwoman…and I don’t think…don’t think…”

  “Stress.” Jessica snorted. “Yeah, that’s the problem. What’s the shrink du jour say?”

  “Dr. Brennan comes highly recommended,” my father said and, because he couldn’t help it, added, “He’s very exclusive and expensive, but he made room on his calendar for Antonia. He feels she should avoid stress and…and unpleasantness.”

  “Maybe she should stop looking in the mirror,” Jessica suggested, and I chewed on my lower lip, hard, so I wouldn’t laugh. I had to admit, I was getting more yuks out of this predawn meeting than I’d had in about a month. Maybe it was a good thing Sinclair was back.

  What was I thinking?

  My father turned his back on Jess but said nothing. She was black, which meant he had a hard time taking her seriously: but she was also the richest woman in the state, so he couldn’t afford to totally blow her off. It was a tricky balancing act, one he usually fucked up. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Betsy?” he almost pleaded.

  “Sure. Send a gift, but don’t visit.”

  Sinclair was on his feet, but my dad, who had his back to that part of the room, didn’t notice. Poor survival skills—outside of the boardroom—that was my father. Jessica reached out and tugged, hard, on his jacket, but Sinclair didn’t budge.

  “It’s okay,” I added, waving Sinclair back down—but he still didn’t budge, the stubborn tick. “I didn’t want to go, anyway.”

  Dad relaxed and smiled at me. “Well, of course, that’s what I assumed.”

  “Of course.” I gave him a wintry smile in return, which, I was glad to see, backed him up a step. “Thanks so much for stopping by. My love to what’s-her-name.”

  “Betsy, you’ve never understood Antonia—”

  “I understand her fine.”

  “No, I don’t think someone like you could ever understand—”

  “Mr. Taylor!” We all jumped. The crockery had practically rattled. And my dad had nearly swooned again. “I demand you retract that statement at once, or I will be forced to—what are you doing?”

  Jessica had jumped on Sinclair’s back in an attempt to forestall the lecture (or possibly the maiming). She was clinging to him like a skinny black beetle, all arms and elbows and knees, and he shook his head, which nearly dislodged her. “Really, Jessica. Could you climb down?”

  “Promise you won’t finish that sentence,” she whispered in his ear. “Take it from me. It won’t do any good, and it might make things worse. She can handle him.”

  Anybody else would have said something like, “Hello, I’m standing right here!” but my dad, the master of ignoring what was in his face, didn’t say a word. He brushed a piece of lint off his shirtsleeve and examined his Kenneth Coles, which were glossy with shoeshine, while my best friend climbed my consort like a premenstrual monkey.

  “I certainly will not. She is my consort and my queen, and he is treating her like—”

  “So,” my dad interrupted, cutting Sinclair off, which nobody ever got away with except me, “I’ll tell Antonia you said hi.”

  “Why?” I asked, honestly curious.

  You have to understand, it’s not like my dad was incredibly brave or anything. He had a pissed-off billionaire and a vampire king in the room, but it didn’t phase him, because it was beneath him. He could just close his mind to anything remotely unpleasant—or even interesting. I’d gotten used to my father’s oblivious ways by the time I was thirteen, when I realized he’d tossed my mom, and the Ant was going to be my stepmother. Since he was the only dad I had, I put up with a lot. But, to be fair, so did he.

  “It won’t be like the last time,” my dad continued, sounding almost cheerful. “She was all alone last time, but this time I’m here, and she’ll have all the support she needs. I just wish you could understand what she’s been through, how hard she…she…” He trailed off as I stared at him, as he realized he’d just made a fuckup of truly heroic proportions.

  “She’s been pregnant before?” I asked, almost gasped.

  Jessica did gasp. “Get out of town!”

  “No—no, she didn’t…I mean, I wasn’t—she wasn’t—we—we—”

  “Was there a baby?” Sinclair asked quietly, and good as he was, my dad couldn’t ignore that and turned around to face him, moving stiffly like a puppet whose strings were being jerked. Which probably wasn’t that far from the truth.

  “Yes.”

  “And”—Sinclair took a step closer (Jessica was still hanging on to his back, gaping over his shoulder at my dad) and looked down at my father—“were you the father?”

  “Yessss.” My dad sounded drugged. But then, anybody did once Sinclair got close enough. He was the best I’d seen at it. I could only entrance men, but he could do anybody.

  “Where is the baby?”

  “Antonia didn’t tell me…didn’t…we weren’t together, and she gave it…she didn’t…she…”

  “You better stop,” I said. “He’s about to blow all his cylinders.”

  “Quite right,” Sinclair said. “That would be truly terrible.”

  I gave Sinclair a look, then took my dad by the shoulders. “Dad. Dad! Listen. You came over and made sure I wasn’t going to come to the shower.”

  “Yes, I made sure of that,” he agreed, focusing on me at once. “Antonia insisted.”

  I gritted my teeth. Bitch! “But I didn’t want to go anyway, so it all worked out fine.”

  “Yes, you refused to go, so it really was all for the best.”

  “And I looked like hell.”

  “Yes, you looked terrible, being dead isn’t agreeing with you at all, not at all, just like Antonia said it wouldn’t.”

  “Now go golfing and,” I added spitefully, “stroke three figures.”

  “Ouch,” Jessica said as my father marched out.

  “I am just not believing this,” I said, massaging my temples. “Like I don’t have enough to worry about. I can’t believe he let that slip.”

  “You have that effect on men,” Sinclair said kindly. “They always reveal more than planned to you.”

  I shrugged but was inwardly pleased. “How long has he been carrying this secret around? Why did he just happen to blurt it out while you and I were in the room? Jessica, would you climb down, for heaven’s sake? I’m dying to know the rest. I mean, I might have a brother or sister running around now.”

  “This doesn’t bode well for your stress levels,” Jessica commented, letting go of Sinclair’s neck and dropping to the floor.

  “We will find out more. Your father has incomplete information anyway. We should go directly to the source.”

  “Antonia,” Jessica and I said at the same time.

  Chapter 6

  Sinclair’s convertible was ridiculously crowded. He was driving, I was riding shotgun (finally, a perk to our “relationship”), and Marc, Jessica, and Tina were in the backseat.

  Tina had come because…well, she always came with Sinclair when we were doing vampire stuff. The two of them went way back—in fact, she’d turned him. She was like his combination best pal/secretary/enforcer/confidant. Which was fine with me, because I sure as shit didn’t want to do any of those things.

  We had decided Marc should come along because we planned to drag all the gory details out of the Ant, and you nev
er knew when a physician might come in handy.

  Jessica, however, had blackmailed her way along. Sinclair had a lot of odious qualities, I’ll be the first to say it (again and again); but one thing he liked to do was keep my friends out of vampire issues. And I couldn’t really blame him…you just never knew when a totally normal vampire errand would end in a bloodbath with severed-limb soap.

  Jessica never accepted these excuses. She put her size-nine foot down and that was the end of it. The clincher was when she told Sinclair it would be a shame if anything happened to any of his European suits while they were at the dry cleaners.

  “In the old days,” he’d replied, “errand runners were actually helpful.” But that was all he’d said about it; Sinclair was always impeccably dressed, and had all his stuff tailor made. It wasn’t being rich and wanting the best; his shoulders were too broad and his waist too narrow to buy off the rack. I could only imagine what his clothes cost. I had the feeling he would have let Jess ride in the passenger seat if she’d threatened his best Gucci.

  So it was crowded, but almost nice. If it weren’t for where we were going.

  “It’s just a word,” Marc was insisting. Oh, not this again. Jessica hated “African American,” but she wasn’t too crazy about the N word, either. “It’s lost all meaning. This isn’t the nineteenth century. Or even the twentieth.”

  “I don’t think we should be talking about this,” Tina said, shifting so Marc’s elbow wasn’t on her eyebrow. She was teeny, but it was a tight fit back there.

  “No, it’s fine,” Jessica replied.

  “Of course it’s fine, we’re all civilized ad—well, we’re all adults. Tina, I swear, you’re the most politically correct dead person I’ve ever known.”

  “I just don’t think this is an appropriate discussion for—for us.” Tina had been born around the time Lincoln freed the slaves, so she had perspective the rest of us didn’t. She was pretty closemouthed about the whole thing.

  “No, no, no,” Jessica said, and I curled my fingers around the door handle, just in case. I knew that tone. “In this day and age, there are quite a few more important things to worry about. It is just a word. It’s totally lost its meaning.” Sinclair was looking up at her in the rearview, and Tina was edging away. Only Marc, who couldn’t smell emotions, was oblivious. “Now go ahead,” she continued calmly. “You just call me that once.”

  Silence. Followed by Marc’s meek, “I didn’t mean we should go around calling other people that. I just think—I mean I don’t think—not that anyone should call you—or call anyone—”

  “Will you stop already before one of us has to knock you unconscious?” I asked.

  Jessica snickered, and that was the end of the discussion for that week.

  We pulled upside my dad’s Tudor (four thousand square feet for two people!) and piled out of the car. It was full dark, about nine o’clock at night. My dad had left town that afternoon for a business trip, and the Ant would be alone.

  This information was helpfully provided by my mother, who supported my vampiric pursuits and helped me out whenever she could. Sometimes it’s like that, I’ve noticed…one parent is almost too great, and the other one’s a shit. I had my mom so high up on a pedestal, the poor thing probably got oxygen deprived.

  I rapped twice, then opened the front door. Unlocked, of course…it was a pretty nice neighborhood. Very low crime. My dad didn’t even lock his BMW when he left it in the driveway. As far as I knew, they’d never been robbed. Of course, if my funds ever ran low, that might change.

  “Helloooooo?” I called. “Antonia? It’s me, your favorite stepdaughter.”

  “And by favorite,” Marc added, stepping into the foyer behind me, “she means hated.” He seemed to be bouncing back nicely from his humiliation in the car…but then, he was pretty irrepressible. Once you overlooked the whole attempted-suicide thing. Come to think of it, it was an attempted suicide…

  “You haven’t even met her,” Jessica said as we all crowded into the small hall.

  “No, but I’ve heard the legend. Frankly, I’m skeptical. Can she live up to the hype?”

  “I have to admit,” Tina said, “I’m curious, too.”

  “She knows you are a vampire, but the front door was unlocked.” Sinclair sniffed. “Either she’s unbelievably arrogant or unbelievably dim.”

  “You can’t be here!” my stepmother said by way of greeting, running down the stairs like Scarlett O’Hara with a blond wig and frown lines. “I didn’t invite you in!”

  “That only works on black people,” Jessica said.

  Tina’s eyes went wide, the way they do when she’s concentrating on not laughing. “I’m afraid that’s an old wives’ tale, ma’am.”

  “Always a pleasure, Antonia,” I said dryly. “Wow, you’ve gained a ton of weight.”

  She glared blondly. Her hair was the perfect color (and possibly texture, but I wasn’t planning on touching it) of a cut pineapple. She had on more blue eye makeup than a seventies disco queen, and her lipstick was a shade redder than her lip liner. Nine o’clock at night, home alone, husband out of town, and in full makeup. And black miniskirt. And white silk blouse, sans bra. Unreal.

  “You get out of here and take your friends with you,” she said. She had been born and raised in Bemidji, but popped her consonants like she’d spent one too many years at an East Coast finishing school. “I told your father I don’t know why he doesn’t just wash his hands of you, and I’ll tell you to your face. And another thing: I don’t want you around the baby; I don’t care if you’re the big sister of the baby or not; you should have had the decency to stay dead like any normal person would stay dead.”

  “She does live up to the hype,” Marc said, goggling at her.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more on that last one,” I said. “This is Marc, my gay roommate.” The Ant was, among other charming things, a homophobe. “And this is Sinclair and Tina.” What they were was obvious. “We’re here to ask you a few questions.”

  “Well, I’m not talking to you. I can’t believe you had the nerve to even come here like a normal person when you’re…you’re…”

  “A Republican?” I asked, possibly starting to enjoy this.

  “We just have a couple of questions, and then we’ll get right out of your hair,” Jessica said. I could tell she was dying to say what she was about to say. “About the baby you already had.”

  The Ant, unfortunately, wasn’t taken by surprise in the slightest, which meant my dad had warned her about his little slip. That was annoying. And surprising. My dad was pretty firmly under the Ant’s manicured thumb. He lived in fear of her surgically plumped lips tightening in anger.

  Instead, she took a breath and may have frowned, but she was fairly heavily Botoxed so it was hard to be sure. “You just mind your own business and get out of here, because it’s nothing you need to worry about, and I can’t believe you came all the way down here just to ask me about that. It’s ancient history.”

  “All the way down here?” Marc asked. “You live in Edina, not darkest Africa.”

  “And are we going to stand in the foyer all night?” Jessica complained.

  “I’m surprised we got this far,” I replied.

  “No, you’re not staying in here all night. In fact, you’re leaving right now.” She dug around in her pocket and then whipped out a cross she had obviously made out of popsicle sticks. “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!”

  I burst out laughing, even as Tina and Sinclair both took a big step back and looked away.

  “I told you,” Jessica said, “that only works on black people.”

  “How come you get to make those kinds of jokes?” Marc whined.

  “Think about it, Marc,” she replied patiently.

  “Get out of my house, you rotten undead things!”

  “She did the exact same thing when the Boy Scouts came around selling Christmas wreaths,” I explained to the others,
then took a step forward and snapped the cross away from her. “Where did you make this, shop class? You couldn’t be bothered to go to a jewelry store and buy a nice one? I’m amazed you didn’t make my dad cough up four figures for a diamond encrusted model.”

  “You get out of my house,” she snapped. “You’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

  “Tell me about it. Listen, we’re going to ask you about my dad’s other baby, and we’re not leaving until you tell us everything.”

  “I’m not telling you rotten dead things a single detail. You’re getting out and I’m going to sleep.”

  “Oh,” Sinclair said, stepping forward once I’d put the popsicle sticks in my purse, “sleep will be the furthest thing from your mind in a few moments, Mrs. Taylor.”

  Chapter 7

  I came back down to the living room after a refreshing five minutes of putting the Ant’s perfumes in the dryer and pushing Spin. Antonia was sitting on the far end of the couch, leaning forward, and staring raptly into Sinclair’s face. Her hands were palm down in her lap, and she was compulsively scratching at the leather, but she never looked away from his eyes.

  I felt kind of weird about this whole thing. Why, exactly, were we doing this? I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it, but here we were anyway, digging around the Ant’s substandard brain. And why was Sinclair so interested? Didn’t he have king stuff to worry about? A suit fitting somewhere? Jerk training to attend, or teach? But here he was, sitting on the denim footstool, holding the Ant’s man hands in his and getting everything out of her. Everything.

  “…and then I tried to get him to propose, but he wouldn’t do it, he was afraid Betsy would get mad at him if he left her mother, so we broke up.”

  “Yes, but the baby?” Sinclair asked.

  “The baby…the baby…”

  “Man, she is getting freaked,” Marc muttered to me. “Look at her.”

  I looked. Scratch, scratch went her nails against her leather miniskirt, and the corner of her mouth was sagging like she’d had a stroke.